As ex-H1 immigrant I will dare to explain.

Companies are paying absolute minimum they can. It is only rational.

The problem is with expectations. A lot of H1 workers are used to a much lower quality of life than native workers. US graduate would want to have a 40 hour work-week, separate bedroom, 401k and such. For a foreign worker from a less reach region 401k and medical are not a requirement, sharing a bedroom with 3 other guys is not an issue. Working round a clock is fine as long as you can send money to your family back in the old country. Oh, also in US you can afford a car that will make you look super-successful on social media.

Do you really want to drive down quality of life for everybody.

The majority of H-1 workers (in my experience as a former H-1 worker) went to university in the US and then transition to H-1B. They have the same salary expectations as their American peers and get the same offers.

Maybe this salary injustice exists for H-1Bs being hired from abroad, but it doesn't exist initially for most H-1Bs when entering the job market. Of course 2 years into the job is a different story because H-1Bs have less negotiation power to seek out other jobs and get good retention offers etc

I would seriously doubt that most H1 workers come from US colleges. It is a common knowledge that most H1s go to Tata/Infosys and friends.

Also, I would wonder: 1. How much of those foreign graduates went to college solely for a visa. 2. I would also expect that those graduates have much lower expectations from the life style. Young men don't really need a lot of money and have a lot of time to spend at work.

Tata/Infosys etc are some of the largest single employers of H-1Bs, but collectively it really does seem that the majority of new H-1Bs every year are in fact issued to people already in the country on F-1 student visas.

Go ahead and ask any immigrant who had a H-1B about their path. I am confident you will come to the same conclusion.

I am 100% certain you have a selection bias. Imagine if you worked in Tata/Infosys and started asking around.

From my experience most h1s are imported by vendors. I've seen a lot of really small "consulting companies" who does this. I had heard over and over again that most regular companies are terrified of having to deal with H1s, due to extra cost and lots of uncertainty.

Selection bias or not - I am saying across any employers out there, go ahead and ask folks. Maybe you don't realize how many people in your companies are or were on H-1B and came via this route.

The H-1B program is heavily used by graduates from US institutions.

I would welcome someone actually studying this rigorously. I am confident my observations will hold. There is also no evidence to assume that Indian consulting services occupy the majority of H-1Bs.

They might have the same expectations, but their manager certainly knows that they are visa dependent and can assign a higher workload to them than they would to their peers who have green cards or US citizenship.

(Some of these peers might be their classmates from a US university, who got their green cards near-instantly by virtue of being born in a smaller country).

It is really nice if you actually work on site of company that holds your visa. A lot of H1s work in consulting companies that place them with the clients. These people are second-class citizens in the office, have much lower salary and less benefits. I've seen a lot of people who came to a company from some low-cost of living state - and being posted in California with the salary that is calculated based on that state. Also, those people with their families get tossed across the States really unceremoniously.